“Drew told me to take a picture of this and text it to him.” She held up her phone and snapped the photo before she looked at Maddie. “How is he?”

Maddie stretched. Her body was stiff from being in the same position in that chair for so long. And her hand felt cold and empty. It felt weird to not be touching him, after holding his hand for so many hours.

“I can’t tell. He wakes up every so often and says a little something, then falls back asleep. He asked me what we were doing here; he didn’t remember what had happened. He’s thrown up a few times. But the doctors—and the Internet—say all of that is normal.” Maddie had spent the last hour looking up a lot of information about concussions on her phone. “We’re still waiting on the CT scan. How’s everything at the office?”

Alexa pulled up a chair on the other side of Theo’s bed and sat down.

“Still wild. I can only stay here for a second, but I just had to see him. The mayor was on all the local news—and some local news shows elsewhere in the state—talking about what happened, but Theo will be very proud: in all of the interviews, the mayor managed to turn the subject back to statewide pre-K and how important it is.”

“I am very proud.” Theo opened his eyes halfway and smiled at Alexa. She reached out and grabbed his hand, which gave Maddie a pang.

“Hey, there you are,” Alexa said. “We’re barely managing without you in the office, you know. But everyone is trying to pull themselves together until you get back. Leave it to you to play the hero.”

Theo laughed, a stronger laugh than he’d managed so far.

“Me, play the hero? It’s my fault this whole thing happened in the first place. Plus, I couldn’t have been less of a hero; I was just standing there and got knocked to the ground.”

Alexa looked at him, then at Maddie, with her eyebrows raised.

“That’s not the story I heard. Peter said you yelled for Maddie to watch out because one of the protestors was near her, and when you started to run toward her, his friend knocked you out.”

Now Theo and Alexa were both staring at her.

“Oh.” Was Alexa going to make some big deal out of this? “Yeah, that is what happened. It was”—she closed her eyes for a second—“a pretty scary few minutes there. I shouted your name and tried to warn you, but . . . it was too late.” She refused to cry. “Anyway, no, you weren’t just standing there.”

Theo reached for her hand. She wanted to grab on to his, but Alexa was right there. She turned to pick her phone up from the table and pretended she hadn’t seen. After a second, he dropped his hand.

Theo sighed.

“I’m never going to get Mallory from the L.A. Times to take me seriously again now that she’s seen me being loaded into an ambulance. Her article about the rally probably rightly blamed me for this whole thing.”

Alexa pulled her phone out.

“One, you’re not to blame for this whole thing. Two, let’s check to see if Mallory’s piece is up.”

Theo reached for her phone.

“Let me read it.”

Maddie snatched the phone out of his hands.

“Did you not hear what Dr. Stewart said to you? No phones! No reading! No screens at all! You have a traumatic brain injury.”

Theo rolled his eyes again, but his yawn kind of destroyed the effect.

“That’s just a fancy word for a concussion. People get concussions all the time. It’s no big deal. I feel fine.”

Maddie handed Alexa’s phone back to her.

“Don’t let him have it. He says he feels fine, but just wait: he’ll fall back asleep within seconds after you leave the room.”

A nurse appeared at the door.

“It’s time to take you down for your CT scan, Mr. Stephens!” Why did nurses always sound so cheerful?

Alexa stood up.

“It seems like Maddie has this in hand, and I should get back to the office. Theo, feel better and do what Maddie and the doctors say. Maddie, text me any updates, please, especially anything from the doctors that we can get Drew to translate. If you’re still here in an hour when he gets off, he’ll come by.”

Maddie met Alexa at the door.

“He keeps trying to make light of this, but I’m worried. We’ll know more after the CT scan, but he was out of it for a while.”

Alexa nodded.

“I could tell you were worried. I am, too.”

Alexa wrapped her arms around Maddie and held her tight. Alexa’s big, warm, loving hug felt so good.

“Thanks for taking care of him,” she whispered in Maddie’s ear.

God, why did that make her want to cry? She was glad Alexa couldn’t see her face.

“You weren’t there, and I knew you’d want someone you trusted watching over him, so . . .”

Alexa pulled back and smiled at her.

“He’s lucky to have you here,” she said. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”

Maddie pulled away.

“I’m fine. He’s sleeping a lot so I have plenty of time to answer emails.”

Alexa patted her on the shoulder and waved at Theo. His eyes were already drooping again.

When Alexa was safely down the hall, Maddie returned to her chair next to Theo’s bed and dragged it closer to him. He reached for her hand just as she reached for his.

Chapter Sixteen

THEO WOKE UP WHEN HE HEARD HIS BROTHER’S VOICE. WHAT WAS Ben doing at his place?

He opened his eyes. Oh, right, he was in the hospital. The rally. Sybil had been right, and he’d been wrong. He looked to his left and sighed in relief—Maddie was still there next to him. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. He looked over at Ben.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Theo said.

“Isn’t that my line?” Ben leaned over him. He must look pretty bad for that worried look to be on his brother’s face. “Sorry it took me so long to get here. There was a ton of traffic.”

“You didn’t tell Mom, did you?” Theo asked. “She’ll freak out.”

Ben shook his head.

“Oh no, of course I didn’t tell Mom. I figured the best way for her to learn that her oldest and most beloved son had been hit over the head and rushed to the emergency room was to get a text interrupting her vacation from any of her fifteen best friends, all of whom watch the local news religiously. Your brain must really have been damaged; of course I told Mom! She would whoop me so hard if I just, what, decided to pretend that if I didn’t tell her she wouldn’t find out? I tried that a lot as a kid; it didn’t work any of those times. Occasionally, I learn from my mistakes.”

His little brother sometimes made good points.

“You’re right. Please tell me she’s not getting on a plane back here right now.”

Ben shook his head.

“I talked her out of that, and hopefully it’ll last. But you can imagine what she said when I told her that you’d been attacked and were in the emergency room.”

Nope, Ben was back to his brother Ben again.

“You told her I’d been attacked? Benjamin, really? Did you also tell her I have a traumatic brain injury, like Maddie keeps calling it?”

Ben grinned.

“Don’t ‘Benjamin’ me. I didn’t actually say that, but I did tell her you were in the ER. I also said Alexa and her doctor fiancé were here with you—I know that wasn’t true, but it made her feel better, okay? She wants to talk to you, but we can do that later. Be convincingly well when you talk to her, please, otherwise she’ll be on your doorstep by nine a.m. tomorrow.”

“You do have a traumatic brain injury, you know,” Maddie said. “You keep saying it like it’s a big joke, but this isn’t a joke. I don’t care how much better you’re feeling right now.” She looked up at Ben. “They took him down to get a CT scan a while ago, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”

Theo looked over at his brother and sighed.

“I know this isn’t a joke. I’m just ready to go home. I hate this IV, I hate this hospital gown, I want to go home to my bed and my clothes and without so many things attached to me, and I want to be able to at least help deal with this public relations disaster I created.”

Why had he ignored everyone who was so worried about protestors fucking up the rally? Now they would be the whole story, instead of the families he’d worked so hard for.

Maddie shook her head.

“I’ve been googling, and what if there’s bleeding in your brain that they haven’t caught? Depending on the results of the CT scan, they might need to admit you so you can stay overnight for monitoring. The first twenty-four hours are crucial—everyone says that.”

“Who is everyone?” Drew asked as he walked in. Theo was both embarrassed and touched that Drew had come by. Of course Alexa had told him to, but still.

“Hey!” Maddie dropped his hand again and stood up. “‘Everyone’ is the whole Internet and all the doctors.”

Drew put his arm around Maddie. Theo wished he was the one doing that.

“First, that’s true. Second, never google when someone is in the hospital; it just makes you terrified. Have the doctors come back yet since the last time you texted?” He turned to Ben. “You’re Theo’s brother, right? I think we met a while ago?”

Ben nodded.

“That’s me. Good to see you again. And if my mother asks, you’ve been here watching over him since the ambulance brought him in.”

Drew nodded.